By Suzanne Sprague
DALLAS – Suzanne Sprague, KERA 90.1 Reporter: Jose Plata is retiring from the school board, in part because the job is affecting his health. It's not hard to imagine why. During his tenure, DISD has gone through six superintendents. It's been rocked by racial tensions and teacher shortages. And, it's still plagued by accusations of financial mismanagement. Jose Plata, Trustee, Dallas Independent School District: I ran for the kids. I ran as a policy maker, trying to enhance the academic standards, along with raising standards for teaching and learning; and I practically spent 85% of my time doing everything but that.
Sprague: Plata says he's bowing down but not out. He'll remain involved in school issues, like getting a bond package passed. And, he offers this advice to his successor: listen more than you talk.
(Ambient transition to parade/marching band noise)
Sprague: And there's a lot to hear in District 7 when it comes to the public schools. This is a 90% Latino district with some of the oldest buildings in the city. At a West Dallas children's parade Saturday, parents and community volunteers said they wanted more schools and smaller classrooms. But they're mostly looking for a trustee they can actually trust.
Citizen #1: To make all those changes and not hear nobody steal any money from the school board, because that's our tax dollars, ma'am, that they're using.
Citizen #2: We need someone to keep order. Someone who is intelligent. Someone that understands that things cannot be accomplished by fighting all the time.
Sprague: In West Dallas Saturday, several of the candidates told supporters they were leaders, not fighters. 32-year-old Rafael Anchia walked the parade route flanked by former students of Sunset High School, where Anchia helped restart the students' mock trial program. Anchia is a corporate attorney, but says he comes from humble roots.
Rafael Anchia, Candidate, Dallas School Board, District 7: I personally am the product of a public school education, first generation American. Spanish was my first language. My situation is very similar to that of the students in here in DISD, and certainly in District 7.
Sprague: Anchia attended public schools in Florida and has lived in the Kessler Park neighborhood for the past five years. He's campaigning on four issues: restoring confidence in the district; increasing private sector involvement in the schools; lowering the drop-out rate; and encouraging more parental involvement.
Anchia: One of the things that the district needs to do is instead of saying, "Come to us," we need to go to them and do quite a bit of outreach.
Sprague: Anchia praises the district's HIPE program, which trains parents on how to prepare their kids for kindergarten and first grade.
Anchia: I think that program has proven to be successful. Unfortunately, it's under funded; it's only rolled out at 18 schools. That's the kind of program we need to spend more resources, time and effort on.
Sprague: Anchia's list of endorsements reads like a "Who's Who" in Dallas politics, beginning with Mayor Ron Kirk. He's raised more than $18,000 for his campaign, more than all the other candidates combined. Nearly one-third of the funds have come from political action committees. Fellow candidate Ramiro Lopez has reported less than $1000 in donations, but his campaign was just as much a part of Saturday's parade.
Ramiro Lopez, Candidate, Dallas School Board, District 7: I've walked in the shoes not only of the students and their struggles trying to get through the system because I've been there; but also in the shoes of the parents, struggling in the system, trying to get their kids through the schools, so I've been there.
Sprague: Lopez dropped out of the San Antonio schools after the ninth grade. He got married and had a baby, all before he turned 20. But Lopez says he soon realized the value of education. He received his GED and then earned an associate's degree. He's lived in Oak Cliff for 30 years and is now the assistant director of equipment and building services for the City of Dallas. Lopez has been involved in PTAs at his children's schools, in the district's Hispanic Advisory Committee, and with the civil rights group LULAC.
Lopez: I want to look at two issues. One is the funding disparity that's out there in the district. You've got children in some schools that are funded at the rate of $9,000 per student. You've got some schools, like Sunset High School, that are funded at $3,900 per student. That's a wide gap in funding.
Sprague: Lopez also wants to take some of the district's most honored academic programs, which he says are unfairly concentrated in magnet schools, and make them available in more neighborhood schools.
Lopez: Why not implement the best practices across the district? That would be one of the most important things at the forefront of my effort.
Sprague: Fellow candidate Louis Trujillo agrees. In fact, many of the men running in this school board election share the same issues. But Trujillo says he has demonstrated the greatest personal commitment to District 7.
Louis Trujillo, Candidate, Dallas School Board, District 7: I live in the neighborhood. I work in the neighborhood. I have a seven-year-old son who attends our neighborhood school in DISD, and that's one of the reasons why I'm running; because I'm also a graduate from DISD school system.
Sprague: The 30-year-old Trujillo works for his parents' tax consulting business in Oak Cliff. He's volunteered in his son's school and sometimes buys supplies, like rulers and pencil sharpeners, that the teachers otherwise wouldn't have. Trujillo wants to pay teachers more; and he wants to make schools safer.
Trujillo: There's some other cities having problems with gun problems bringing into school. We should issue that now, bring a program, teach our kids that guns is a bad weapon and we need to focus on that before it gets into our city.
Sprague: The other two candidates in this race are most concerned about the district's money: where it's coming from and where it's going to. Immigration attorney John Wheat Gibson says he's running for the school board to raise the issue of how the schools are funded.
John Wheat Gibson, Candidate, Dallas School Board, District 7: Look to the federal government for all the funding. That's where all the money is. We don't have a state income tax in Texas, and the property taxes and the lotteries and the other scams that our government runs here in Texas to raise money are just not going to raise the funds necessary to provide us with a decent school system.
Sprague: Gibson acknowledges he wouldn't have the authority to restructure public school funding as a DISD trustee, but he says such a change is necessary to pay for more teachers and more classrooms.
Gibson: And here in the Dallas School District we have classes with 40 students in them. You just can't give personal attention to any student in a class that size.
Sprague: Candidate Bob Werner also says money is the root of all problems in DISD. But his focus is on corruption and mismanagement.
Bob Werner, Candidate, Dallas School Board, District 7: We need to be sure that all transactions that this district enters into are proper transactions that only have the district's best interest.
Sprague: Werner is an investigator with the Environmental Protection Agency. He carries with him a manila folder stuffed with court documents and other public records which he says show how DISD is funneling money to personal cronies through school contracts. If he's elected to the school board, Werner wants to help institute a comprehensive whistle-blower policy among district employees to weed out graft and corruption.
Werner: What I'm referring to here is basically a program that everybody in the district would understand that if they're doing something that is not right, they can be turned in by their friend.
Sprague: Werner says he isn't accepting contributions to his campaign so he won't be indebted to anyone but the students of his district. The election is Saturday, which is also the widely-celebrated Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote, a run-off election will be held June 2nd. For KERA 90.1, I'm Suzanne Sprague.